


one letter to fill my broken heart with gold

by semioticdaydream



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Acceptance, Anger, Angst, Bargaining, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Civil War ends worse, Denial, Depression, Discussion of Death, Epistolary, Fallen son #1, Five Stages of Grief, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, References to Depression, Soulmates, Unrequited Love, descriptions of violence, earth-9230, over dramatic angst, sad Steve Rogers, what if? (Comics)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:53:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24985636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semioticdaydream/pseuds/semioticdaydream
Summary: There’s a secret Steve never told Tony. Now, he’ll never have the chance. To process his grief, Steve writes a short series of letters from his prison cell.
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15
Collections: Team Angst





	one letter to fill my broken heart with gold

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill for the SteveTony Games! Bingo prompt: unrequited love.  
> Inspiration from the 2008/2009 Marvel What If? Comic Fallen Son #1, what if Civil War ends worse? Comic synopsis in the end work notes.  
> Take care as this work references major character death, gives brief descriptions of violence, and be mindful of an over-dramatic Steve meandering through his grief. Discussions of depression, loss, and death are present throughout this work.

————

Dear Sam,

I’ve just received the news I'm sure you already know. I can’t bring myself to even write it in this letter. None of this feels real, I don’t know why I’m even writing you. Sam, I spend my days alone in my cell. I can’t accept visitors, and now the guards are telling me I can’t expect that to change for the duration of my sentence. Which is fine, really, the only visitor I had hoped to see was him…

I just feel insulated from the world now that the sentence is finalized. I know it’s what I agreed to, and I accept full responsibility for my actions, and the crusade I lead. But I can’t believe, I just can’t accept what they’re telling me.

I haven’t yet received a newspaper, not that it would make this feel any more real. I’m sequestered, tucked away, removed, and I feel like I’m existing in some alternate reality. My body is floating somewhere far from my conscious mind, and I can’t seem to connect the two.

You know I’ve faced loss. I’ve lost so many, and seen so much death. But this...it just doesn’t feel real. I keep thinking after I’ve served my time, I’ll walk out of this cell, and be greeted with one of his signature hugs, an impossibly tight embrace. I’ll get to look into those clear, azure eyes once again, and tell him all the things he never let me say before.

I’m told he left a letter to me. There’s a delay in retrieving it, some miscommunication with Jarvis, perhaps. I never told you this, but I was waiting for him to change his mind about something. Now, I guess he never will.

These are uncertain times. Take care of yourself. Best,

Steve Rogers

  
  
  


————

Sam,

Why do the good ones suffer? Why are they brought here, greatness thrust upon them, then to endure torture and cruelty and a lifetime of sorrow, only to be so untimely plucked from the earth?

Why was no one there to protect him? Where were the SHIELD bodyguards? Are they being questioned, interrogated? An act so cowardly deserves punishment. Foster can’t even begin to comprehend what he’s done. He’s lost more than his uncle, he’s lost the greatest protector Earth has ever known, and he's brought weakness upon us all. We are all to suffer because of one small-minded man who couldn’t control his rage.

The futurist, dead? Earth remains vulnerable in the wake of this loss.

We are all complicit in this. We are all to blame for not protecting him. We are worse for this. I’ll forever fight anyone who says otherwise.

And you know what? Tony is to blame, too. He denied me, forsake me, and tore us apart. And why? Why would he do this? To me, to us, to the world?

I never told you this, but I knew something about Tony. I never told him, either. I wanted him to change his mind about me, first.

You know, he was a character witness at the trial in my defense. I suppose everyone knows that, now. He’s charming, and if you watched any of the coverage, you’ll know his charismatic tongue was a great asset to my defense. But you won’t know that his testaments at trial were insincere. Behind closed doors, when the cameras left, when proceedings paused, Tony and I had a few moments, in the end. We were close once, in a way no one knew but us. I asked him about his testimony, and he told me he didn’t mean it. He told me to move on, accept the olive branch, and accept the way the world will be from now on. I don’t agree with his choices. I think he was selfish, self-centered, egotistical, and I think he was a genius, too. Such a genius, in fact, that he could’ve prevented this, all of this, and yet, he didn’t. His hubris got the better of him, didn’t it? I knew it always would.

I’m still waiting on this letter he promised. I’m starting to suspect another broken promise so perfectly characteristic of Stark.

This is wrong. The world is just wrong.

S. Rogers

  
  
  


————

Dear Sam,

I apologize for my last letter. I was overcome with anger, and I’m sorry I shared my embittered emotions with you. Thank you for understanding.

I know it’s only been a collection of days, not quite strung into weeks yet, since Tony’s death. But all I’ve had time to do is to sit and think. I sit in this cell, and stare at the ceiling, but I don’t even see the concrete anymore. I just think about Tony, and what I could have done.

I never should have fought him, started a crusade against him. I know now what my ego has cost me, cost us all. I should have talked to him, been honest, broken down the walls that grew so thick between us over all these years.

I regret it, I regret all of it. I know my views on the S.H.R.A. were right, but the way I went about it, I got it all wrong.

If only I had talked to him. If only I hadn’t fought, hadn’t encouraged others to fight, too. If only I turned myself in earlier. If only I had accepted the deal he offered to me...if only I had done anything different, anything at all, I could have been there to protect him, I should have protected him...I would give anything to go back and be there to protect him…

I think about that too, about all that I would trade to have him back, or to even have a chance at having him back. 

There is nothing I would not give for that chance, or a chance to change his life.

It feels wrong, none of this feels right. Something deep within me tells me it should be me in his place, I should have died for these choices. I would give anything to take his place.

I’m sorry, Sam. These are the only thoughts I have now. I should have done more. I owed him more.

I was his soulmate. Tony wouldn’t have known this - he told me all the damage to his heart destroyed the faint tug he once felt ages ago. I never told him...there’s so much I never told him. I should have, but I didn’t. He didn’t want me, and my doubts whisper to me that even if he knew we were intended to be bonded, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. I know I should have told him, but I so desperately wanted him to want me without knowing this. Even so, knowing I was his soulmate, I still feel the golden thread tugging at my heart, guiding me to him. I don’t know how that’s possible to feel in death. I think it was the only thing that kept us connected all these years.

I would give up the bond, though, if it would bring him back.

I’m starting to think there never was a letter. And, I’m starting to beg for any message from beyond the veil, or otherwise. Anything from Tony.

I hope you’re well. Thank you for your replies, they mean more than you know.

  
Sincerely,

SR

  
  
  


————

Hi Sam,

I apologize for the delay. I did receive your last few letters. They bring me a comfort more than you could realize.

I’m told the funeral is approaching. It’s surreal. The formidable, indestructible, incredible, Iron Man. How can we hold a funeral for a man made of iron?

He never wanted me.

I know I wasn’t worth it. 

I tried, but I wasn’t good enough for him. He never felt for me the way I felt for him.

It aches. It’s so strange, how your body can feel nothing at all, and yet there is a gaping pain tearing at every shadow within your heart. 

That’s all I feel I am now. A shadow.

I see my body, it’s still floating somewhere, far from my mind.

I feel I only exist in my mind. I have no corporeal mass tying me to this world.

My mind is an endless space of darkness and shadow. I try to follow a thought, and only echoes remain.

I was once a man of hope, trusting if I gave him what he needed, he would change his mind, and I could tell him my secret.

There was no logic to my hope, I know this. And logic evades me again.

We fought a good fight. Our crusade was just. And yet...

Nothing I’ve done is worth anything if this is the cost. I can’t take it back. And I can’t tell him any of this. There’s so much I never said, and so much I should have told him. And now, there’s so much that I can only tell _him_ , so much I can never tell anyone else. The only thing that was important, I will now take to my grave. I only wish he knew...

It wasn’t worth it.

I thought I had time to fix things with him. I thought if I served my sentence, when I was released, I’d be able to mend it all with him. I agreed to the sentence, forsaking the deal he fought to offer me, all in the name of being a united front. I wanted to appear as if we were undivided again, show the world that we could agree on something meaningful. And I told myself, if the world sees this, sees what I’m doing, maybe he will see it too. Maybe I’ll be able to change his mind, prove to him our undeniable magnetism, show him how good we are together. 

Why was I so stupid?

I don’t know if I had changed anything if his mind would have changed after all. I would like to think he would have wanted me if I had done things right, and yet...

I regret all that I’ve done. He didn’t deserve this end. I keep thinking about it, about the shock, the fear, the loneliness he must have endured at the end. Pain so formidable even the great Tony Stark couldn’t survive. Tony, a man with a silver tongue, breath forced from his body as his lungs were crushed and he was beaten to a pulp. In the end, even his words couldn’t save him. He had so much to live for, and it was stolen from him.

Tony was so full of life. I still think of the nights we were together...I feel him on my skin and taste him in my mouth and hear his voice softly in my ear as if it happened yesterday. I always have, and I suspect I always will. He was so physical, but not in the way I had come to expect. He was expressive, and free, so free with me unlike his disingenuous, flirtatious, smart-ass persona he loved to flaunt. Most of all, on those nights when the whole world faded away and only we remained, Tony was sincere. I don’t know how I managed to lose what we had. I don’t know how someone bursting forth with energy and excitement and passion can just vanish from this world. It’s a paradox my mind can’t begin to comprehend. I feel myself slipping further and further into this unsolvable abyss.

I now have no need for these concrete walls - my mind is a prison. It’s an endless vortex, ceaselessly spinning and sucking me further into its depths. I won’t fight it anymore.

I don’t see a way out. I only see darkness for myself and for our world. It’s up to you now to carry the burden I can no longer bear. I’m so sorry to leave it to you, but I know it’s you who can make sense of this, carry on the fight, lead the defense for our world. I know SHIELD will support you in this too.

I’ve received no letter from Tony. It must have been a mistake. They’ve informed me I’ll be permitted leave to attend the funeral, but in my state, I’m sure the permission will be revoked.

The wind left my lungs when he was killed, and I have yet to inhale.

  
  
  
  


————

Dear Sam,

I’m sorry. I’ve not had a chance to fully read your letters. I’m ok.

I hope you receive this letter before the news inevitably broadcasts the funeral. I want to let you know I will be in attendance, although I am not sure I will be afforded opportunity to speak with you should you be present as well.

I received a letter from Tony.

No, he never loved me.

Not in the way I loved him.

But, he did love me.

He wrote that he trusted me, and I believe him.

He wrote that he needs me, still, now, in death, and I see now that although my love was unrequited, he never stopped needing me, as I have never stopped needing him.

He’s left me with a request. Sam, I plan to spend the remainder of my days honoring his wish.

He was my soulmate, and I was his friend. It will have to be enough, and I think that it is.

One day, I’ll see you again. Until that day, I’ll keep writing you.

If you could extend my condolences to Rhodey, and to Pepper, I would appreciate it. God knows she’s been through hell. I’ll write them when I have time, but until then, thank you for relaying my sentiments. 

When you talk to Bucky, let him know I’ll be alright. If you see Sharon, encourage her to follow your lead. Same goes for Bucky, I suppose. I put my faith in you. 

I’m seduced by the dream of one day holding him again. The golden strand’s pull is still taut, although I don’t know how that’s possible. But, when I attend Tony’s funeral, I’ll say goodbye, and I’ll mean it. If this thread keeps pulling my heart, I’ll trust it, I’ll follow it. I traveled through time to find him, and I arrived here. He always was my guiding light.

Even if I’m shrouded in darkness, even though the sun has been extinguished, I now know what path I am to follow to protect his legacy. If I couldn’t protect him in life, I’ll forever protect him in death.

I have to remain strong. For you, for Bucky, for SHIELD, for the world.

And most of all, for Tony. 

Steve

**Author's Note:**

> “After Civil War, Steve was not assassinated, and instead was tried as planned. Tony is killed by Bill Foster's nephew (who blamed Tony for his uncle's death), and this is used as even more anti-hero propaganda that results in worse fighting.”
> 
> My sincerest apologies to those who follow the comics closely, I took some liberties with my characterization of Steve that must be pretty inaccurate! Anyway, thanks so much for reading! 🖤


End file.
